The Elements of Rain
by Kazuko1
Summary: Hermione gets some help with her homework. HGBZ one-shot.


A/N: Written for the It's Always the Quiet Ones Secret Santa fic exchange. Assignment: Hermione/Blaise, a kiss or dance in the rain, jealous!Ron, a Slytherin getting the shit kicked out of him/her, and fluff.

Hermione Granger sat staring at the rain pouring down around her. She was the only one in Hogwarts' courtyard, as everyone else was enjoying their Saturday by being warm and toasty in front of the common room fires. Harry and Ron had refused to join her, exchanging one of their 'Hermione's going bonkers over homework again, must pretend to be interested in our own subjects, though we're not and if not for Hermione we would fail out of school and be forced to become Bertie Bott's taste-testers to stay off the streets' looks. Stupid twits didn't think she knew how to interpret their code. 'Though,' she thought in sudden depression, 'that last side-glance-eyebrow-waggle-twitch might actually have meant "if not for Hermione we wouldn't have to pretend to study so much and would have more time to eat Bertie Bott's and oogle our Quidditch mags."

The truth was, sometimes Hermione wondered if Harry and Ron were only her friends because they felt obligated to be. They'd only become friends after the incident with the troll after all, which Ron at least had felt partially responsible for, and Hermione had helped them out of more than a few tight spots over the years and, and, and that was just stupid. She knew Harry and Ron were her friends because they wanted to be, because they cared about her as much as she cared about them. In Ron's case, more. Unfortunately. He and she had dated for a few months in sixth year, but their relationship hadn't survived Ron's jealous paranoia. He had been suspicious of her feelings for every boy she came into contact with, no matter how ridiculous it was. Hermione had finally blown up at him after he had accused her of making eyes at Gregory Goyle. Things had been rough between them for awhile after that, but Ron had eventually found solace in the arms of Lavender Brown, and now they were as good of friends as ever. "And he's probably happier with a _real_ girl than a know-it-all bookworm anyway" whispered a small voice in Hermione's head. Hermione shook her head roughly. She needed to stop being so morose. It was just the blasted rain was making her feel so depressed. She turned to look at the falling water once again, rubbing at a stray drop on her nose in irritation. If it weren't for the stupid bloody rain, she wouldn't be forcing herself to do this, she thought, a trifle illogically. And if this assignment wasn't worth ten percent of her mark she would have been inside with everyone else.

They had been studying water elementals in class for the past couple of weeks and Professor Vector told them they were finally ready to try to call the elementals on their own. "No need to study the elementals in your textbooks at this stage," she'd said. "At this point you just need to go out and try to feel your energy harmonize with theirs. The rest will be easy." This shouldn't be so hard, Hermione had thought at the time—her body was eighty percent water after all. Hermione stared at the water dripping from her hair, trying to build a sense of connection to it. It was no use. She sighed again. She could expound upon the chemical and magical properties of water until long after whoever she was talking to was bored out of their mind, but when it came to trying to "harmonize" her energy with it, all she could think of was that rain felt wet and cold and water was much nicer when seen from the inside of a window.

She was so preoccupied by her waterlogged thoughts it took her a moment to notice that the shadow she had thought she was looking at was actually a person. A person coming toward her. A person coming toward her dressed in Slytherin robes.

Ever since Voldemort had gotten the shit kicked out of him by Harry, people had started to feel a bit more benevolently towards the students of Slytherin house and there was a general attitude of 'let bygones be bygones'. Of course, it hadn't hurt that the new head of house was very nice and fair to all the Houses (and, even better, incredibly good-looking). This did not, however, keep Hermione from reflexively looking about her for an escape route (or a large rock to throw, she wasn't picky) when she saw that the person approaching was dressed in Slytherin robes. As the person got closer she realized it was one of her fellow seventh years, Blaise Zabini. Zabini was in her N.E.W.T. level Arithmacy class, but the most in-depth exchange she'd had with him had consisted of him asking her what page of the textbook they were on at the moment. He was constantly being reprimanded for staring out the window instead of paying attention, but Professor Vector's voice always held a note of affection in it when she was scolding him. That, and the fact that he had one of the sweetest smiles ever to bless a Slytherin's face, was the extent of Hermione's knowledge of him. And while she might have spent a few idle moments here and there wondering what he saw in the view from the classroom window that made him smile so sincerely, that was all the speculation she had indulged in on his part.

At the moment he was displaying a smile with enough wattage to rival one of Lockhart's when a camera was in the vicinity, and walking with such a bounce in his step she expected him to start a rousing rendition of "Singin' In The Rain" any second.

Hermione narrowed her eyes and fought the urge to throw that large rock at him. Hopefully he wouldn't see her. And if he did, surely he'd see she wasn't in the mood for company and move along. But no, apparently she wasn't to be so lucky. He saw her and changed directions, walking toward her until he was right in front of her bench. He obviously didn't even have the decency to take his disgustingly good mood away from people who were plainly spending quality time wallowing in their misery.

"Granger! What're you doing out here? You look miserable."

"Thank you so much for pointing that out."

"Oh come on Granger, look around you! How can you possibly be grumpy on a day like this one?"

Hermione looked around her, taking in the soggy ground, the ominous sky, and the thermometer on the wall that was pointing at "If you're reading this, you're insane. Go inside." She looked back at Blaise.

"Zabini, you haven't been in Professor Sprout's private greenhouse have you? The one she keeps her _special_ plants in?"

Blaise laughed. "I assure you Granger, I am not under the influence of any hallucinogenic drugs. I'm merely enjoying my post summoning rush."

"Post summoning? You mean you've already gotten a water elemental to come to you?"

"Yeah, wasn't that assignment a piece of ca—" Blaise cut himself off abruptly, taking in Hermione's expression and clearly realizing that it wouldn't be wise to finish that sentence.

There was silence for a moment as Hermione wrestled with her need to get top marks and her desire to do so without any help. Blaise stood looking at her silently for a moment, then solved her dilemma for her by catching her hand and dragging her to her feet.

"Hey! What d'you think you're doing?"

"Well, you haven't been having any luck harmonizing with water elementals on that bench have you? Maybe it's time to try something different." And with that he swept her into a swirling waltz. "See, the thing with elementals, is, they like to have fun, right? And if you don't seem like you're any fun, they won't want to come to you. You've got to understand them to call them, and they've got to understand some part of you before they'll come."

At first Hermione was too shocked to do anything, and then before outrage could make an appearance, she realized all hope of keeping any part of her self untouched by the cold water was useless. And as Blaise continued to twirl her she began to enjoy herself. There was a kind of freedom in giving up control, in not trying to stop the rain from sliding down her back and her feet from stepping in puddles. And if enjoying herself would help her do her homework, then she was all for playing in the rain. Using Blaise as a counterbalance, she began to spin them around the courtyard, laughing as a good part of the splash she sent up when she went through a puddle landed on Blaise. She started to go for the puddles deliberately, and got him good before he caught on to what she was doing and began splashing back. This quickly deteriorated into an all out water fight and before long they had collapsed into one of the biggest pools in the courtyard, hooting with laughter.

The laughter eventually faded, but the smiles stayed on, and there was a mischievous gleam in Blaise's eye when he asked her, "So Granger, do you think you've got the idea, or should we move on to skinny dipping?"

Hermione looked at Blaise's grinning face, considered the angles and amount of force needed to send a splash of maximum size into it, and smiled wickedly to herself. No, she didn't think she'd have any more trouble harmonizing with water elementals. She watched as the splash caused him to sputter in mock outrage and his shirt to its cling to his chest anew. Of course, he didn't really need to know she felt confident in her ability to bond with the elementals yet. And a swim was sounding better and better the longer she looked at those clothes hugging Blaise's body.

Yes, a swim sounded very nice indeed.


End file.
